Close encounters of the bear kind.....

But first we had four beautiful sunshiny days in a row in Homer

It was a quick 35 mile drive down to Homer from Deep Creek Beach. We got there mid morning hoping to improve our chances of getting an oceanfront campsite on the Homer Spit with views of the surrounding  snow capped mountains – and we did! The Homer Spit juts out 4 miles into Kachemak Bay – it’s a thin sliver of land where all of the fishing charters are located along with some restaurants, bars and shops.  The added bonus was 4 straight days of blue sky and sunshine – a rare occurrence in Alaska this summer…. We’ve had some nice days but rarely even 2 in a row – so four straight days of sunny, warmer weather was a real treat!!!!  We even had our jackets off during the day and wore short sleeve shirts – wow! We don't expect those of you who are enduring the heat and humidity to give us one smidgen of sympathy!

 Highlights of Homer: 

• Camping on the Homer Spit – what a fun place to be – fishing, sea otters, seals, eagles

• Boat ride through Kachemak Bay to Seldovia – lovely scenery on the boat ride plus whales, mama sea otter with her baby, puffins, seals. Seldovia is a quaint old Russian Village only accessible by boat and plane. 

• Hike through the lupine along Kachemak Bay

• Seeing a mama moose and 2 babies at Anchor Point – it’s the western most road in North America

Click on the arrow to see the video of the mama moose and TWO babies!
• Campfires in the evenings with our new friends and campground neighbors - Beth and Dick 

• Islands and Oceans Interpretive Center – learned a lot about the natural history of the Aleutian Islands and hiking trails down by the sea where we saw two eagles performing a mating dance!

Click on the arrow to see the two eagles mating dance

A close encounter of the bear kind – grizzly that is……

After 5 nights in Homer we headed north a couple of hours drive to Cooper Landing – it’s where the Russian River flows into the Kenai and is where the term “combat fishing” was born. There are so many salmon spawning on these two rivers that fisherman line up shoulder to shoulder along the banks of the rivers.  They are so close to each other that many wear protective goggles for their eyes. The local clinic has a permanent sign out front advertising that they do “fish hook removals”!  We suspect they have gotten lots of practice removing all the hooks!

Fisherman we met on the Kenai River Trail - off on a 5 day fishing trip

We stayed in the National Forest at the Russian River Campground where many of the fishermen stay. The campground is between the Kenai and the Russian Rivers so there are loads of places to fish along the banks of the river and where there are fish there are bears and eagles nearby….. The campground has bear warnings posted all around and also requires each camper to sign a form acknowledging proper storage of food to avoid attracting bears.

After we got  Rose set up we took a hike with Molly on a trail down to the Kenai River armed with our trusty “bear” whistle around my neck just in case we saw a bear  “up close and personal” - hoping we wouldn’t get that close to a bear. We didn’t get very far on the trail before we encountered a grizzly bear hiking right toward us – about 30 feet away!  I immediately forgot everything I’ve learned about bear avoidance and had visions of all three of us being the next meal for the hungry grizzly but luckily Gary kept his cool and said – “we need to back up and blow the whistle and you’ve got the whistle” .   Oh my gosh – I had forgotten about the whistle – so I blew it several times really loud and fortunately we found out that the bear didn’t like the sound of the whistle and ran into the woods.  Needless to say, our hike ended abruptly and we went back to the safety of the campground – or so we thought!

The next day we were at the campsite and a black bear came walking right by us – thank goodness we were all safe inside good ole’ Rose and could enjoy watching the bear as it ate berries in the campground. It’s hard to enjoy the wildlife when you’re afraid you’ll get eaten!

Highlights of Cooper Landing

• Not getting eaten by the grizzly bear – thank goodness it was just an adventure!

•  Float trip on the beautiful upper Kenai River – we saw 23 eagle nests  and beautiful scenery

• Watching the “combat” fishing  along the Kenai and Russian rivers and also watching the fisherman cross the Russian River on the “quirky” Russian River Ferry - it uses the fast flowing current to propel it across the river

Click on the arrow to see the video of the Russian River fisherman's ferry in action!

• Seeing a black bear in the campground from a safe distance in Rose

Next Stop is Seward – it’s the gateway to the Kenai Fjords National Park. We hope to snag another oceanfront campsite like we did at Deep Creek Beach and Homer. Could we possibly have 3 great campsites in a row?????